The subject matter disclosed herein relates to turbine casings and, more particularly, to turbine casings with access slots and at least one service wedge configured to be removably installed in the access slots.
Gas and steam turbine engines are typically designed with casing/shell splits along the horizontal centerline of the unit. For major maintenance inspections, parts replacements, etc., the upper half casings are normally removed. The disassembly and subsequent re-assembly process is mechanically very involved along with being resource and time intensive. For example, it is necessary to attach the upper half casing to a crane and to remove fastening elements along the entire axial length of both casing/shell splits so that the crane can lift the upper half casing away from the lower half casing.
For small to medium scale inspection, maintenance, repair or replacement operations, the ability of the operator to access the interior of casings/shells is often compromised. As such, it may be necessary for the entire removal process to be conducted even for relatively minor operations if internal access to parts is required. This issue can be especially resource and time intensive particularly as compared to the scope of the relatively small scale maintenance, repair or replacement operations.